Italy’s David winners announced

'Caesar Must Die' wins big with five of the country's top film nods

Rome– Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s gritty semi-doc “Caesar Must Die,” shot in Rome’s maximum-security Rebibbia penitentiary where convicts perform Shakespeare, was the big winner at Italy’s David di Donatello Awards, scooping five of the country’s top film nods.

“Caesar,” winner of the Berlin Golden Bear earlier this year, took Davids for picture, director (shared by the brothers), producer, editor and sound.

The testimony to the therapeutic power of theater is produced by Grazia Volpi, in association with Stemal Entertainment, Agnese Fontana’s Le Talee and Associazione Culturale La Ribalta, with financing from RAI Cinema.

“Caesar” beat the frontrunners in the nominations: Marco Tullio Giordana’s political drama “Romanzo di una strage,” Nanni Moretti’s “We Have a Pope” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “This Must Be the Place.”

The David for best first-time Italo helmer went to scribe-turned-helmer Francesco Bruni for “Scialla!” (Chill), a coming-of-ager about the rapport between a melancholy professor and a rebellious teen.

Sorrentino’s English-language Sean Penn-starrer, “Place,” nabbed best score and song for David Byrne, and also nods for screenplay, cinematography, makeup and hair.

Gallic icon Michel Piccoli took the best actor David for his role as a just-elected pontiff who gets cold feet in “We Have a Pope.”

The David for foreign film went to Iranian helmer Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winner “A Separation,” while Gallic megahit “The Intouchables” took the David for best foreign pic produced within the EU.